SEO and Marketing

As a marketing strategy, Search Engine Optimization is a great tool. Placement at or near the top in rankings increases the amount of traffic that will visit your site. It is important however not to rely too heavily on Search Engine Optimization, but rather have multiple sources for increasing traffic to your website. For example, the use of paid advertising and building a high quality website page can persuade consumers to visit your website as well. By creating a high quality website page you are also addressing technical issues that may keep your page from being crawled effectively.

Remember that the purpose is to attract traffic and persuade users that you have what they need despite the fact that you are competing against thousands of other websites. It is also important to use analytic programs in tandem with search engine optimization, so that you can measure the success and profitability of your page and make adjustments as necessary. You want to boost your conversion rate, which means turning a visitor into a customer. Visual imagery, well-written landing pages and other tools of the trade are effective towards this ultimate goal.

More search engine referrals do not guarantee more sales. While it’s true that SEO can generate a return on your financial investment, it is also true that this is non-paid organic search traffic and therefore you are not guaranteed future referrals. A business that relies too heavily upon SEO and doesn’t have other marketing tools can see results drop if search engines stop sending traffic to their site. They key to survival is to diversify your marketing strategy and not rely too heavily on any one tool. Observe and identify changes in trends and technological advances so you can adapt and revise your SEO plan and your business will thrive.

Search Engine Optimization – Indexing

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft created search engines that use crawlers to find pages on websites for their search results. Some search engines such as Yahoo offer a paid submission service which guarantee crawling with a cost per click. Keep in mind this doesn’t guarantee ranking within the search results.

It is important to realize that not every page is indexed by search engines and the page distance from the root directory of a site can be a contributing factor in whether pages are crawled or not. You can instruct the crawler not to scan log-in specific pages such as shopping carts and user-specific content such as internal searches (this is often called search spam).

SEO is pretty much black and white. Or more specifically - ‘Black Hat’ versus ‘White Hat’. White Hat activities produce positive results that last for a long time; on the other hand Black Hat activities are banned either temporarily or permanently once the activity is discovered. White Hat conforms to search engine standards and involves no deception. White Hat is classified in many ways is similar to web development that promotes accessibility. Black Hat uses deception through the utilization of hidden text or employs bait & switch tactics that take you to different pages (this is also known as cloaking). Usually the page displayed is not the one that was requested.

The entire point of search engine optimization is to boost your company’s reputation and ranking through honest marketing and advertising and to make your business lucrative and profitable. It goes without saying that businesses that utilize deception to boost their rankings or to obtain traffic will be penalized by search engines for not being honest with consumers.

Search Engine Optimization

What is Search Engine Optimization and how can it help your business? Quite simply, Search Engine Optimization or SEO as it commonly known is the process of organizing your website to be ‘read’ by search engines in the most effective manner. The result, hopefully, means that the quantity and quality of traffic is vastly improved. The earlier a website appears in search result pages and the higher its ranking, the more traffic it will generate.

Search engines are the gatekeeper for users looking for specific information on the Internet. Search engines read the programming language of your website known as HTML or Hyper Text Markup Link. HTML is text-based information on a web page identifying all text as links, headings, paragraphs, lists and so on.

‘Spidering’ is a web-crawler program used by search engines that runs an automated script to browse the web in an automated and methodical manner. Search engines use spidering to obtain up-to-date data, although they can also be used to automate tasks on a website or index downloaded pages to increase the speed of searches. They also are used to check links and validate HTML code. This bot or program starts with a list of URLs to visit and then identifies all the hyperlinks on the page and adds them to the list of URLs to visit.

There are specific types of search that a user can employ: industry-specific, local and image. An ‘Industry-Specific’ search is based on the category of a company such as ‘plumbing’ or ‘dentist’. A ‘Local Search‘ allows users to geographically constrain searches against local businesses. And an ‘Image Search’ is specifically designed to find pictures, images, animation, etc. Your website should be optimized for these types of searches.

As a marketing strategy SEO analyzes how searches work and what people want. While this is a truly wonderful marketing tool, one must be aware that with every positive there is a negative. For example a “black hat seo”, while not too commonly known amongst Internet users is harmful to the effectiveness of your SEO. It uses spam-dexing, keyword stuffing and link farms which impede the search engine experience. You want to completely avoid sites that utilize these techniques.

Website Design: Knowing Your Options

Proper website design could mean a world of difference when it comes to how visitors see your business. Sites containing colorful, professional layouts get more respect than those with poorer website design. So, you definitely can’t ignore the presence of website design… even if you feel you don’t have the time to fully achieve it.

Of course, if you are really busy, there are alternatives you can consider for achieving the best website design. These alternatives involve using templates or hiring a website designer. In the sections below you will learn the pros and cons of each of these options.

Using Templates
Templates are the most affordable choice for website design. They are widely available off of the Internet often free-of-charge. Additionally, many of them aren’t bad in terms of their looks. However, if you decide to use a template for website design, you lose a bit of originality. Why? Well, with so many of them being available for free, it’s highly possible if not probable that your beloved template is already being used by hundreds if not thousands of others. And, if you’re concerned about branding, the last thing you want is for your website design to already be recognized on other Web pages.

There is also another disadvantage with templates. Sometimes the original designer may incorporate spyware code into the design. And, unless you know how to dispel such coding, you may be stuck with a site full of pop-ups and undesirable links. Of course, this is if you’re lucky. If you get a website template off of a wrong site, you might inadvertently download viruses which could harm your computer.

Hiring a Website Designer
Hiring a website designer is more expensive than getting a template, but it is the best option if you want a unique website free of annoyances. Just make sure that before you hire someone, you check out their portfolio and references. Don’t work with a person who doesn’t know website design like the back of their hand.

If you need help trying to determine which website designer you should use, check with business associates. See who they might recommend. A good Website design company can make a world of difference to your brand identity. The same cannot be said when you use a template, since templates don’t have the knowledge that good website designers have.

Search Engine Marketing - Keyword Selection And Placement Tips

A big part of successful search engine marketing is search engine placement (where your web page fall in the search engine results). Keyword selection and placement is a major factor in on page. Search engine optimization and search engine marketing but whenever new businesses are trying to get their web page noticed and show up higher in the search engine results pages they often focus just on what there site looks like instead of also utilizing SEO strategies help get there web site to come up in the search engines. Here is one easy ways that you can improve your search engine placement results to increase your web page traffic and your sales.

Keyword selection is very important so choose carefully. Keywords are the driving force behind successful search engine marketing and search engine optimization. Your search engine ranking and ultimately how many people read your website depend on the keywords or key phrases that you choose. So pick carefully. When you’re trying to decide what keyword or key phrase to focus your search engine optimization on you should start with the most basic search term that a person would be likely to use when trying to find a web page about your product or service. So for example if you are selling refrigerator magnets on your website when it’s time to pick the keywords that you want to use for search engine marketing what are the first words that come into your mind? Did you think of words like “kitchen refrigerator magnets” or “funny refrigerator magnets” or even “cartoon refrigerator magnets”? Use those words as your primary keywords because chances are good that if those were the first words that you thought of in relation to your product those will be the first words that other people think of when they are searching for your product. When you are choosing keywords for your search engine marketing campaign always use more than one word. If you only have one keyword then you will get ranked very low on the search engine results page because the search engine spiders will have millions of webpage in their indexes that have that word somewhere in the page. The more specific you can make the keywords or key phrase the more likely it is that your search engine marketing and search engine optimization efforts will pay off and bring in customers that are looking for exactly the product that you are selling.

Make sure that you position your keywords carefully. Using your keywords spread through the page. I suggest using your main keyword phrase in your first and last paragraph of your content. And don’t forget to us them in the headings and in the hidden html meta tags on the page especially the “title tag”. It will make it more likely that the search engine spiders will rank your web page higher than other pages that might have some of the same content but don’t have those keywords or key phrases placed properly on the web page.

Search engine marketing is great because it delivers people who are actively searching for what you have. Unless you employ some search engine optimization strategies like keyword placement, your site may never be found by those who desperately need what you have.

Terry Stanfield is a SEM consultant with over 15 years of sales and marketing experience. Before you do anything go to Terry’s site for information on Search Engine Marketing and related info about Search Engine Optimization. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Terry_Stanfield